The Shield Is Mightier Than The Web! "Amazing Spider-Man 2" Earns $92 Million Opening Weekend - Which Is Less Than "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Managed

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a pretty big opening weekend, snagging $92 million in it's web.

Most films would kill for that kind of opening weekend.

However, that contrasts surprisingly poorly to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which opened at $95 million last month.

Also, compared to the franchise's previous efforts, the take is a bit disappointing. The $92 million opening weekend is in the middle of all five films in the franchise - besting the $88 million opening weekend of Spider-Man 2 in 2004 and The Amazing Spider-Man films $62 million in 2012.

So while an obvious upgrade over the opening film of the Marc Webb-Andrew Garfield- Emma Stone reboot, it falls way short of the opening weekends of the 2002 Spider-Man - which had an $114 million opening weekend - and the 2007 Spider-Man 3 - which had a, well, amazing $151 million opening weekend. When inflation is taken into consideration, more tickets were bought for Spider-Man 2 also.

It is clear fewer movie goers are interested in paying to see the wall-crawler onscreen today than his adventures in years past.

It is also clear people are more excited to rush to the theater to see other heroes on the silver screen, too.

These include Batman (The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises had opening weekends of $158.4 million and $160.8 million respectively); Superman (Man of Steel opened to $116 million) ; Iron Man (Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 had openings of $98.6 million, $128 million and $174 million respectively); and now Captain America, who had been considered the "least popular Avenger" until Winter Soldier shattered that perception.

When inflation and momentum are taken into account, it could be argued that the Thor franchise is in better shape than Spider-Man as well.

A Spider-Man movie, by himself, used to be as big an event as a new Avengers film. That is clearly not the case anymore.

What effect this may have on plans to expand the Spidey Cinematic universe with sequels and spinoffs is anyone's guess at this point.